


The Reverend Mr Woodhope is waylaid while visiting his sister in London

by Ilthit



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Alcohol, Clergymen, M/M, Priest Kink, Regency, Smut, Threesome - M/M/M, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 10:09:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4783496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry finds himself invited to an intimate dinner at Mr Lascelles' house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reverend Mr Woodhope is waylaid while visiting his sister in London

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Syberiad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syberiad/gifts).



> Written on the spur of the moment for the JSAMN Character Week on Tumblr and for Syberiad, who has professed a fondness for Drawlight sandwiches.
> 
> Because I wanted to upload it immediately, the text will be very raw! Pointing out typos and mistakes in comments would be very much appreciated. I will edit it later.
> 
> I did not intend to become principally a smut writer, especially in this fandom. I can only apologize.

Henry Woodhope looked up the tall face of Gilbert Norrell's house at Hanover-square. He had been assured that he had the correct house by the coachman and by a passing newspaper boy. There was something grand and intimidating about these town-houses, Henry thought, like slivers of several different country homes wedged together in endlessly varying rows, with a river of people passing before them like a mighty living moat.

It was past five in the afternoon, and had circumstances not conspired against him, Henry would be at his sister's house in Soho-square, warm and comfortable with a cup of tea and the pleasant company of his relations. He had written to Arabella to let her know he was coming a day early for his Christmas visit, but appeared to have beaten the mail-coach to London. He had arrived to find the house empty save for the servants. Mrs Strange was out on a social call and was not expected back until dinner, which would be late in the evening as was the habit in town, whereas Mr Strange, Henry had been told, was still with his master. 

Henry had been hungry after his journey, and tempting his brother-in-law to an early dinner at a public establishment had seemed like a good idea at the time, but the prospect of showing up uninvited at the door of a magician – a profession Henry could never come to think of as entirely respectable, for all the good it was doing in the war – made him hesitate. He had just resolved to stop acting like a ninny and knock when the door opened and out bustled a young man of a sort that made Henry think he may have the wrong house after all. He was small, dark, and very smartly dressed in a tall hat and a splendid lush scarf, such as Henry would rather have expected to see on a lady. Following him was another man of a distinctly mercantile look, carrying swaths of fabrics.

The young man smiled and shook the gentleman's hand, thanking him for his business and assuring him that Mr Norrell would be most pleased with his festive decorations, and that providing goods to Mr Norrell was a great honour, indeed! Almost comparable to royal patronage! This, Henry thought, was somewhat unpatriotic.

The young man fixed his large, beautiful eyes on Henry and exclaimed in surprise. “Why, Reverend Woodhope! It has been a while since you were last in London. You are here to see Mr Strange, I suppose.”

“I am,” said Henry once he recovered his voice. He found himself shaking hands with the man.

“Are you only just arrived?” asked Drawlight. “Aren't the roads dreadful? A number of dear friends have told me they have never been so bad.”

“Are you Mr Norrell's, er...” He could not be a servant, not with all the glitter and silk he was wearing.

“I am Drawlight, sir,” said the young man. “I have the pleasure of being a great friend of Mr Norrell's. Alas, I must tell you that you come in vain. Mr Strange and Mr Norrell are closeted with Mr Canning, and cannot be expected to emerge before dinner. Would you like to come in? I was about to leave, but I would very much like someone to come and admire the dining room. I picked out the colours myself.”

Henry had never before heard of friends who redecorate each other's homes and invite stragglers in to admire the effect, and so felt he had to decline. Drawlight listened to his protest with growing curiosity, and eventually closed the door behind him. “What an excellent and thoughtful fellow you are!” he said. “I suppose one must be when one is a reverend.” He seemed to consider Henry for a while, with a glitter in his lovely eyes. “I have a wonderful idea. Why not come and dine with a friend of mine, and Mr Norrell's, at his house? I happen to know he has no plans for tonight, and then he and I are such great friends that he would not mind another plate or two at the table. You must come, Reverend.” With that, he hooked an arm around Henry's and pulled him up to the waiting carriage. The mercantile gentleman was wedged opposite them with his swathes, and Drawlight chattered merrily to both of them as the carriage bounced and bobbed on the cobblestones.

Hunger was growling in Henry's belly. He should ask to be taken to Soho-square, where at least he could sit down and ask for a piece of bread and a cup of tea, if only he were able to get a word in edge-wise. Henry did not consider himself particularly slow-witted – he was a scholar, after all – but he would readily admit that the rhythm of the great city could run away with him. For all he knew, Mr Drawlight simply inspired friendships of such intimacy that unannounced visits with new acquaintances in tow were nothing out of the ordinary.

Drawlight asked a great many questions and answered more than Henry had time to ask. Mr Strange was well, but very busy; Mrs Strange patronized some very respectable dress-makers; was the Reverend at all familiar with the Coleridges; had the Reverend heard there was nothing like a consistent ingestion of Madeira at dinner to safeguard against gout? Mr Lascelles purchased only the best. By the time they arrived at another handsome house on another handsome street, having dropped off their companion and rounded the dirty hovels and masses that gathered right at the river's edge, the sky above was pitch black, high above somewhere beyond the light pouring out of every window.

Mr Lascelles's house was darker than most, with only two windows lit downstairs and one up. Drawlight's knocked confidently and they were immediately admitted into an expensively furnished drawing-room by a close-lipped, harried-looking servant.

The expense that the owner had gone to was obvious even to Henry, though the good taste was lost to him. He admired the room as very pretty, but could scarcely credit that the urn that adorned the corner was a genuine relic. It seemed an odd thing to bring into a respectable living room. Had the curtains cost as much as that? Nevertheless, it impressed Henry, and he began to feel at ease. The master of the house kept them waiting a quarter of an hour before appearing at the door, his coat hastily thrown on, as if he had been in shirtsleeves a moment before. He had a look of thunder on his brow. Henry stood up and bowed.

“Mr Lascelles, the Reverend Mr Woodhope,” Drawlight said before any other word could be uttered. “The Reverend is Jonathan Strange's brother-in-law. He is not used to London hours, so I took the liberty of inviting him to dinner.”

“Did you?” asked Lascelles. There was something queer in the look that passed between them, but Lascelles' brow cleared. He strode over to shake Henry's hand with a hint of a smile on his handsome face. “You did quite right. Any friend of Jonathan Strange's is welcome at my table.”

“You're very kind,” said Henry, who had begun to feel the whole arrangement was right and proper after all. Goodness knew his own parish invited him over every other night for no other reason than that he was a clergyman; it was all the more likely, therefore, when the clergyman was stranded by fate in a strange city. He launched into a long tale of his woes, to which Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight listened patiently, with only a few asides to one another, and a moment when Mr Lascelles left the room to instruct his butler on the new dinner arrangements.

The dinner, when it arrived, was excellent. The soup was mushroom with white wine, the fish salmon poached in champagne, and the main dish roast beef served with red wine sauce. The wines were as excellent as Mr Drawlight had promised, though Henry professed he had not cared for French vintages since Napoleon ascended the throne. His companions, though different in both age and disposition, remained amiable, and between each other exhibited a unity of thought and action that put Henry rather in mind of a pair of spinsters in his parish who had lived together since girlhood. Mr Lascelles' conversation was characterized by brief, on-point statements exhibiting a certain kind of dry with that Henry found a touch over-sophisticated, whereas Mr Drawlight continued to speak a great deal very prettily without ever saying anything of any consequence. To have wondered at his invitation at all began to seem absurd to Henry as he ate and drank and allowed a happy compliance to envelop his tired body.

“And what was our dear Mr Strange like as a boy?” asked Mr Lascelles.

“Oh, very lively,” said Henry. “Very fond of the outdoors. We used to fish a great deal. Have you been to Shropshire, sir? A fine environment for a growing boy, with plenty of open air and exercise available.”

“I dare say. He went to Cambridge for some years, I understand?”

“Yes, but I'm afraid Jonathan was never much of a scholar before he became interested in magic.” Henry frowned. “Clever, of course, but you see – no subject ever satisfied him.”

“Magic is of course endlessly fascinating,” said Drawlight. “I am no magician myself, but I do know a thing or too about satisfactions and distractions. There is always something new to learn, and yet something terribly wonderful about an old pleasure revisited. At the moment I am quite wild for remedies. Do have some more Madeira, Reverend – remember what I said about gout. I don't expect a young man like you has ever felt the slightest twinge of the beastly thing, but it's never too early to start looking after one's health.”

“No, indeed,” said Henry and drank.

After a pinch of snuff (which Henry declined, being resolved to restrict his pleasures lest they distract him from the service of the Lord) and a few glasses of port, the gentlemen returned to the drawing-room. A fire was burning in the crate and the room was nearly as warm as in summer. Henry sank gratefully on to a plush sopha, and felt only a little surprised that both his companions joined him on it, one on each side. He felt very pleasant indeed, and the gentlemen smelled agreeably smokey and masculine, though Drawlight's scent had an overtone of something floral.

Mr Drawlight was still discoursing on remedies. “Of course, there is nothing – quite nothing – that can be done about the aches and pains of travel but rest, unless it is Dr Ling's remarkable method of massage. Are you very much affected, Reverend?”

“The roads were very bad,” admitted Henry.

Mr Lascelles tutted. “Mr Drawlight, it appears to me that between us we have a duty to make the Reverend as comfortable as we can.”

“I agree completely, Mr Lascelles,” said Mr Drawlight.

“Reverend, would you please remove your jacket?”

“What for?” said Henry, but he was already gratefully unbuttoning his jacket, which had been straining since the salmon course.

“For the remedy, of course, Reverend,” said Lascelles, and helped him pull the garment off. “I shall massage your shoulders, and Mr Drawlight will look to your thighs. It is a simple theory of application of pressure at key locations to relieve tension.”

“I had no idea you were a medical man, Mr Lascelles.”

“A gentleman needs many skills these days,” murmured Lascelles. He stood up and behind the sopha while Drawlight sank to his knees in front of Henry, pulling off his gloves and placing them neatly on the sopha next to them.

Lascelles's long fingers were strong and firm as they grabbed the flesh of Henry's shoulders and massaged it open-palmed. Drawlight's fingers felt sharp by comparison as they found muscles and tendons in Henry's thighs that Henry hadn't been aware he even had. He closed his eyes as Lascelles moved to rub his neck gently with his thumbs. “If you will permit me?” Lascelles asked, and Henry nodded. Lascelles lifted off his wig, dropping it on top of Drawlight's gloves, and ran his hand once through the short-cropped hair that had been plastered close to Henry's head throughout the long day. Henry felt rather like melting.

Drawlight abandoned his thighs as his companion's blissful hands returned to Henry's shoulders and neck, and soon the reverend could feel his waistcoat being undone. The relief was immense, and his head lolled back as Drawlight's hands ran over his belly and chest, now covered only by his cotton shirt.

There was a flutter of something soft across Henry's lips, and he blinked his eyes open, but all he could see above him was the face of Mr Lascelles looking down, his finely combed hair tumbling over his forehead and an amused look in his eyes. Henry blinked again as Mr Lascelles leaned down and kissed him again, so lightly that Henry might have thought he had imagined it twice.

Henry had been kissed before, of course, just never by a gentleman, or so unexpectedly. This was rather affectionate indeed for someone one had only met that same night, but Henry could mount no objection, so Lascelles leaned down and kissed him a third time. Drawlight scooted closer, placing himself between Henry's knees.

There was nothing light or fluttery about this third kiss. Lascelles had his arm around Henry's, hand splayed across his chest, while with his other he lifted Henry's face up. His lips were firm where Henry's were slack, and he soon opened them so Henry could feel the moistness of his tongue. The shocking intimacy of the caress shot through Henry and he felt a shameful part of his anatomy twitch in response.

Drawlight tugged at his shirt, and the sensation of cotton pulling up against his member made matters worse. Henry squirmed. Lascelles withdrew but did not release him. The candlelight turned the man's lazy grin into something almost demonic, and Henry, God help him, only felt more compromised by the thought. “I trust we are not discomfiting you, Reverend."

“No,” said Henry. “No, but...”

“Good,” said Lascelles and leaned down again.

The buttons of Henry's breeches were popped open one by one and he found his hips pulled up until he slouched against the back of the sopha. Lascelles kept him much too occupied to attend to Drawlight, even as the young man told the reverend he was doing very well and what a wonderful prick he had, a beautiful member, so virile. Drawlight then shut himself up by closing his mouth upon the object of his admiration.

Henry had a moment's panicked thought of losing his member to this perverse young man's teeth, but nothing of the sort occurred. Instead he found the sensation of a warm, wet mouth on his prick almost painfully exquisite. And Mr Drawlight's tongue! To think such terrible pleasure could come from so unlikely an action! And yet Lascelles was duplicating something like it on Henry's mouth. Both kisses were the most extraordinary that Henry had ever experienced, and he had thought himself well-versed with the minutiae of marital relations!

Henry was neither so drink-addled nor so innocent as to think these actions were anything but severe sins punishable by all sorts of terrible fates, but at present he could not quite bring himself to ask the gentlemen to stop. It was not sodomy precisely, he told himself – no – they were kisses, though of an unusual and depraved sort. He would pray for guidance the following morning, but for the moment he grabbed Lascelles head with one hand and Drawlight's with the other to urge the gentlemen on in their attentions.

Emboldened, Drawlight made a delighted though somewhat muffled sound and took Henry's member in both hands, rubbing the shaft up and down while he suckled the tip. Henry gasped as Lascelles released him to throw off his own jacket and unbutton his waistcoat. Drawlight's eyes were cast down almost modestly and the shadows of his long lashes cast across his cheek, lovely as any woman's, though with his jawline and short hair he could not be mistaken for one. Henry's own hand looked meaty and uncouth so close to his youthful, well-coiffed beauty. Then Drawlight lifted his eyes, gave Henry a saucy look, and plunged his head down over his member.

Henry groaned. He was so impossibly deep in Drawlight's mouth that should the idea not have been preposterous, he might assume he had actually entered the man's throat. Furhermore Drawlight was extending his caresses to Henry's heavy balls, leaving him rather lost to intelligent thought. The wine still blurred the edges of his mind, but his body knew what it was doing. His hips jerked upwards.

“Very good, Mr Drawlight,” said Lascelles. “Isn't he good, Reverend? Such a sweet little mouth. Such a skilled tongue. We've achieved wonders since we met, haven't we, Christopher?”

“Perversion,” rasped Henry. “Filth. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“Oh, we are,” Lascelles assured him as Drawlight bobbed his head faster. Henry was dissolving quickly between Drawlight's mouth and hands, waves of pleasure pushing him towards that physical paroxysm he had been careful to delegate to Wednesdays only (to coincide with his bath). It was a Friday, he remembered. It had been nothing like this two days ago with his member in his own hand and a few thoughts of the milkmaid and a fictional stable boy to entertain him. When he spilled into that wonderful wetness, it was with an unaccustomed choked shout.

His legs twitched. Spots swam before his eyes. He could feel cool air on his member as it was released from its wonderful confinement in Drawlight's mouth. The young man stood up, and Henry focused on him long enough to see he was flushed and grinning brightly as he, too, began to undress.

“Sirs, I beg you, you've done quite enough!” Henry struggled to a more upright position and tucked himself back into his breeches. “This is sodomy – or something like it. I don't know how you feel about it in the city, but I assure you that in the church we still take this sort of infraction very seriously. Very seriously indeed!”

Drawlight nodded along, folding his clothes one by one as they came off, his attempts at a solemn expression frequently crumbling into smiles.

“Oh, we would never tempt a clergyman into sodomy,” said Mr Lascelles, coming around the sopha. He had stripped down to his breeches, which he was currently unbuttoning, and his slim, athletic figure reminded Henry of a living Grecian statue, or at any rate the facsimile that had stood on the mantelpiece of his uncle's house, the masculine details of which had drawn his gaze as a boy.

“No, never!” agreed Drawlight. “In fact, we would not allow it!”

“It is bad form to hoist one's sins upon others.”

“And nothing is so unbecoming as bad form.” Drawlight nodded decisively, set down the last of his clothing on a chair, and pulled Lascelles down into a kiss.

Henry watched them, his prick spent and lazy but the heat of anger and desire a-light in his chest. They should not look so lovely twined together as they were, Lascelles's hand on Drawlight's face, his other wandering towards towards the young man's beautifully rounded buttocks. _Callipygian_ was the word Henry's mind provided. He remembered suddenly why his father had never approved of his uncle's enthusiasm for the classics.

“However,” said Lascelles with a glance at Henry, “we all have our own little foibles.” He then turned Drawlight around and shoved him up against the sopha. Drawlight caught the back of the sopha and braced one hand on each side of Henry's burning ears, with one knee next to Henry's thigh, as Lascelles pulled down his breeches and positioned himself behind Drawlight.

Henry looked up at the ecstacy – yes, ecstacy, or at least the pleasurable expectation of it – on Drawlight's face, and could not understand it. What kind of person would take such pleasure in sin for its own sake? He heard Lascelles spit and saw him reach between Drawlight's legs before taking one more step forward.

Drawlight stiffened and bit his lip, but when Lascelles pushed his hips forward, he pushed his own down. At what Henry could only assume was the successful completion of the sin of Sodom, his mouth fell open, making him look very much like a masculine Saint Teresa pierced with an arrow.

Henry was startled into action at last. “He is hurting you, Mr Drawlight!” he exclaimed.

“Oh no, not at all,” said Drawlight. Lascelles jabbed his hips forward and Drawlight bit his lip. “Maybe a little.”

“It cannot be borne. I must--”

“No, don't,” Drawlight begged. “Henry, yes, please.”

“I do not understand,” said Henry.

“Not _you,_ Reverend. Henry, oh God. Like that, yes.”

The back of the sopha shook as Lascelles fucked Drawlight harder.

“But I'm not doing anything!” cried Henry. “Mr Lascelles, please desist.”

“I would if he stopped-- ngh-- begging for more,” said Lascelles.

“Reverend, I am quite all right,” Drawlight said, laughing headily. “It is a most-- exquisitely-- oh Henry, fuck me.”

“I cannot!” cried Henry, distressed. “Even if it was not sin-- if I wanted to-- not that I don't-- Mr Drawlight, the position is occupied.” But Drawlight just leaned down, kissed Henry, and took his hand, placing it on his own prick as it swung underneath him.

Drawlight's mouth tasted bitter. Henry recognized the taste of his own seed, which had found its way in his mouth before via fingers that needed to be cleaned quickly and discreetly without leaving a tell-tale stain. This reminder of their recent misdeeds spurred on an enthusiasm for more of the same. Henry grasped Drawlight's prick more firmly, rubbing it as he liked to rub his own. Drawlight broke the kiss to gasp and chatter encouragement to both his Henrys. By the time the young man came, spreading hot and sticky seed in Henry's hand, Henry's composure was thoroughly shattered.

Drawlight caught his breath, his forehead resting against Henry's shoulder, as Lascelles finished with a few final strokes and a sigh of satisfaction. The man then slipped off and stepped back and away, already pulling up his breeches, and Drawlight collapsed into Henry's arms. Instinctively Henry cuddled him close, until they were a single unit of sweat-slick skin.

“What do you say, Reverend?” asked Lascelles, pulling his shirt back on. He poured himself a drink. “Does allowing a priest to witness your sin count as a confession? Which prayers would you advice I say to cleanse my soul? Or yours?”

“You are making fun of me. This whole evening I have been a joke to you!” Even as he said it, he hugged the boneless young man closer to his chest. Despite the bait that had brought him to this lair, he was in no doubt as to who here was the greater sinner.

“I dare say you've been a joke longer than that, Reverend.” 

“Don't be rude, Henry,” said Drawlight over his shoulder at Lascelles, which at least cleared up one earlier misunderstanding. To Henry, he said, “We meant no harm.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Only you are a clergyman and Jonathan Strange's brother-in-law. How could we resist?”

“You devils!”

Drawlight pouted very prettily. “Forgive us. Please?” He nuzzled Henry's neck and ran his fingers down his chest. “Forgive us and I'll take care of that naughty thing poking into my stomach...” He kissed Henry's cheek, his lips, his neck.

The mercy of the Lord, Henry found, truly was infinite.

 


End file.
